US President Donald Trump is exploring options including the use of capital punishment to battle a new and deadly epidemic of drug abuse. So many Americans have died while abusing the world's most powerful opioids that the outbreak has reduced average US life expectancy by two years. The trafficking of drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl and the like has resisted standard "war on drugs" enforcement, and the US government is floundering and grasping at promised solutions.
If history is a guide -- and Mr Trump should use it -- the death penalty will have little effect, if any. The president has cited Singapore as "proof" of success. Even that is arguable. In the past three weeks, Singapore has executed two convicted drug dealers, and the hangings continue. So does the drug trafficking.
Closer to home, the death penalty was common from the 1960s through the 1990s in Thailand. During that time, drug trafficking and abuse both rose. Modern cartels emerged, leading to today's gangs that produce and smuggle drugs into and out of Thailand -- particularly from Myanmar. The public has supported every campaign against illicit drug sales and smuggling, but the problem has only got bigger.
